What Is Animation?

Well, do we really have to explain that here? You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a glue, right?

We like what we found at Wikipedia:
"Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement."

The important part is "[...] artwork or model positions [...]". This is the difference to shooting a film or video.

So the question is now: How do we get the artwork or the model positions? That leads us to the ...

Animation Techniques

There are several techniques for creating an animation:

traditional animation ("by hand" development of each of the images)

stop motion (or step-by-step) (using a camera to take the images that finally build the animation. e.g. clay animation)

computer animation

other animation techniques (like: drawn-on-film, paint-on-glass)

We do not think that the term "computer animation" is very helpful as many of the other techniques can be done, enhanced or mixed with computer tools. But let us stick with the term as long as we do not have a better one.

We talk about computer animation if we use a computer to create at least some of the images just based on rules and data.

Computer animation can be divided into two different ...

Types Of Computer Animation

The 2 types of computer animation are:

2D Computer Animation and

3D Computer Animation

2D Animation is quite close to the traditional animation techniques. The computer tools take care of some of the steps that can be generated based on interpolation rules. The images that define important positions of a movement have to be created by the animator. The results are best if the animated images are based on vector graphics because changes to the vectors are well-defined without any ambiguity.

3D Animation changes the whole animation process. It is not built upon images that an animator creates, but on 3D models of all relevant resources (such as actors and scene). 3D Animation is much more comparable to real film production or stop-motion clay animations: one has to take care of camera position, camera movement, lights, movements in 3D space (collisions).

Despite the fact that 3D Animation is available and even for a reasonable price there are good reasons to work with 2D.

Why Do 2D Animation?

2D is more direct

Not that 2D animation would not take into consideration camera, lights and movement, but in 2D it's always about the image itself, not about the technology to get the image.

skills are different

You need different skills for 2D and 3D animations. 2D needs more painting skills where with 3D you would need 3D construction skills. Both are arts on it's own, but as we said... different.

it is a different style

There are many very successful movies and tv series that intentionally work with 2D animation or even traditional animation. Good example: "The Simpsons". Even more obvious: the "cut-out-animation" style of "Southpark" is part of the art concept.

With 3D animations it is more difficult to keep things abstract and in a sketchy style.

time & efforts

Chances are that for several reasons a 3D animations is much more time-consuming than a comparable 2D animation.
And, hey, yes, we know that on the other hand 3D movements can be very time-consuming with 2D (e.g. head turns).

If you are interested in creating animations and your time and resources are somewhat limited (and who's are not?) you might get results faster with 2D animation.

... And Synfig Studio?

You may have guessed it already... Synfig Studio is conceptually developed for 2D computer animation based on vector graphics.

Synfig cannot do 3D. Period. But believe us: it is very powerful, just 5 examples:

animating a plant growing and blooming .. easy. Have a look at the tutorials.

doing "cut-out-animation" style with Synfig: no problem (just have a look at the tutorials)!

you might use Synfig for technical animations as all changes can also be based on mathematical models.

creating a Slide Show with your pictures (again: have a look at the tutorials).

mixing pictures and animations for funny and astonishing effects (you guessed it.. yes, have a look at the tutorials)

The Animation Creation Process

So, can we do everything in 2D animation creation with Synfig Studio?

Well, you could, but there are parts where Synfig fits very well and other parts where you might better use other tools to do that.
Let's have a look at the creation process of an animation to structure this a bit...

The animation creation process includes the following steps:

development

pre-production

production

post-production

sales and distribution

Develoment takes care of the creation of the story as such and does typically not include creation of any artwork other than textual descriptions. Sales and distribution are important, but also do not have an animation content as such. We will have a closer look into the pre-production, production and post-production steps.

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